A perovskite solar cell is a type of solar cell which includes a perovskite structured material, most commonly a hybrid organic-inorganic halide perovskite halide material, as a light-absorbing layer. Solar cells based on hybrid organic-inorganic halide perovskite halide materials, such as methylammonium tin halides, may be produced with simple solution processes in a traditional lab environment even at room temperature, while solar cells based on single crystals of silicon and other semiconducting compounds require expensive and multi processes, conducted at high temperatures in a high vacuum in special clean room facilities.
Power conversion efficiencies (PCE) of solar cells using these materials as light-absorbing layers have increased from 3.8% to 20.1% in current versions. With the potential of achieving even higher power conversion efficiencies and the very low production costs, hybrid organic-inorganic halide perovskite halide perovskite-based solar cells have become commercially attractive. Such hybrid organic-inorganic halide perovskite films also show strong light absorption, long-range balanced carrier transport length, and low non-radiative recombination rates. Moreover, hybrid organic-inorganic halide perovskite films have potential in light-emitting diodes, lasers and photodetectors.
Such hybrid organic-inorganic halide perovskite films have been fabricated by a variety of vapor assisted solution process, which include intramolecular exchange, solvent-engineering depositions, sequential deposition processes, enhanced “reconstruction” processes, and solution-based hot-casting techniques. Although the vapor assisted solution processes have routinely produced hybrid organic-inorganic halide perovskite films that show the power conversion efficiencies larger than 16%, the processes are expensive and impractical for a large-scale fabrication of hybrid organic-inorganic halide perovskite films.
More scalable techniques, such as spray-coating, inkjet printing, slot-die coating, doctor-blade coating, and hybrid chemical vapor deposition, have been developed. However, these techniques have failed to fabricate hybrid organic-inorganic halide perovskite films with comparable power conversion efficiencies larger than 15%.